The Fort Wayne-Huntington-Auburn CSA

This article is the second of seven that will highlight each of Indiana's combined statistical areas (CSAs). CSAs are groupings of predefined metropolitan (metro) and/or micropolitan (micro) areas that, as the title suggests, combine these areas to “represent larger regions and reflect broader social and economic interactions.” (1)

The Fort Wayne–Huntington–Auburn CSA is made up of the Fort Wayne metro (Allen, Wells and Whitley counties), along with an additional four counties: Adams, DeKalb, Huntington and Noble.

These seven counties make up 9 percent of Indiana's 6.3 million residents. Fort Wayne is the largest city in the CSA with more than 223,000 residents, or 39.5 percent of the entire combined area. City and town population estimates in the combined statistical area are shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1: City Populations in the Fort Wayne–Huntington–Auburn CSA, 2005

Employment

Jobs in the Fort Wayne–Huntington–Auburn CSA have suffered over the past five years, with losses of more than 5,000 jobs from the first quarter of 2001 to 2006 (down 1.8 percent). That is 1.7 percentage points lower than the state's job losses. However, a closer look shows that most of those losses can be attributed to the 2001 recession, and the past two years averaged annual gains of more than 2,000 jobs (see Figure 2).

Figure 2: Jobs in the Fort Wayne–Huntington–Auburn CSA, 2001 to 2006

At the individual industry level, despite losing more than 10,000 jobs over the past five years, manufacturing remained the largest industry in the region, making up 24.5 percent of all jobs in 2006. Compare that to just 20 percent of all jobs at the state level. Other than manufacturing, the health care and social services industry supplied the most jobs at both the regional and state levels, making up 13.3 percent and 12.3 percent of jobs, respectively (see Table 1).

Table 1: Change in Jobs in the Fort Wayne–Huntington–Auburn CSA, 2001:1 to 2006:1

Wages

At the individual industry level, utilities paid the most in 2006 in the Fort Wayne–Huntington–Auburn CSA with an average of $1,552 per week—$196 more per week than the state's average. This wasn't the biggest difference between state and CSA pay levels, however. Management of companies and enterprises paid an average of $264 more per week at the state level than it did in the Fort Wayne–Huntington–Auburn CSA (see Figure 3).

Figure 3: Average Weekly Wages by Industry, 2006:1

Across all industry sectors, average weekly wages in the Fort Wayne–Huntington–Auburn CSA saw a larger jump from the first quarters of 2005 to 2006 (an increase of $41 per week) than it has in five years, an overall improvement of $70 per week. Unfortunately, the Fort Wayne–Huntington–Auburn CSA did not manage to increase wages as quickly as the state, which saw average weekly wages jump by $93 over the same five years. In fact, the Fort Wayne–Huntington–Auburn CSA has increased wages at a slower rate than the state since 2003 (see Figure 4).

Figure 4: Average Weekly Wages in Indiana and the Fort Wayne–Huntington–Auburn CSA

Commuting

There were around 272,600 workers who lived in the Fort Wayne–Huntington–Auburn CSA, according to Census 2000. Of those, 79.9 percent live and work in the same county within the CSA, and another 15.2 percent travel to other counties within the CSA. As for those workers leaving the combined statistical area, 3.9 percent travel to other counties within Indiana and the remaining 1 percent leave the state (see Figure 5).